


A Light Beyond the Stars

by draculard



Category: British Actor RPF, Planet of the Apes (Movies 1968-1973)
Genre: Ape/Human Relationships, Cosmetology, Forced Starvation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It's all a product of my id, M/M, Offscreen Torture, Slavery, Sorry guys I dont have any explanation for this, Time Travel, Woobie David Bowie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 22:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18157652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: For years, Cornelius has been in charge of cutting a human captive's hair.





	A Light Beyond the Stars

It was hot on the planet of the apes. Sweat rolled down the back of Cornelius’s neck, dampening his apelike fur. But even if the day hadn’t been so hot, Cornelius would still be sweating. He had the jangly chimp nerves.

Cornelius made his way down the stone steps, heading right for the human jail. For five years, the apes had kept one human prisoner. He was never to be killed, for he was so beautiful that no one could bear to erase him. His blond hair had grown long, so that it hid his multi-colored eyes, and it was Cornelius’s job to trim it. He was wicked good with scissors. Before becoming a very important ape, perhaps a politician of some sort, he’d spent two years at monkey cosmetology school.

It always made Cornelius nervous to meet the human. He entered the underground jail, sighing in relief at the sudden chill. The human was never warm, even in the midst of summer. Which sucked for the human, but it was nice for the apes to sometimes go down there and visit him, because they hadn’t gotten around to inventing monkey air conditioners.

The human didn’t glance up at Cornelius. He was slumped in the corner, fiddling with a pair of round glasses that had been broken for years. A vivid purple bruise was painted across the human’s cheekbone, spreading all the way to his ear. His clothes, once pressed and clean, were now in ruins.

The human fascinated Cornelius. He claimed to come from the year 1982 - if that were true, it meant he was part of the race from which apes had evolved. This should have made him inferior, but Cornelius secretly found the human to be intelligent and extremely beautiful.

“Human,” he said, “I’m here to cut your hair.”

The human didn’t move. Cornelius opened the cell door and stepped inside. It always smelled of sex down here; it was common practice for the more well-off apes to pay the jailers for an hour or two alone with the human. Cornelius stepped forward and grabbed the human by his shoulders, lifting him onto a low stone bench.

“Hold still,” Cornelius said. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he always took great care with the human’s hair. It had been so luxurious and soft when the human first stumbled into their encampment, and Cornelius hated to see such great hair go to waste. Sometimes, he worked harder on the human’s hair than he did on his own.

“Cornelius,” said the human softly. He touched Cornelius’s wrist with the tip of his finger. The human was always gentle; Cornelius wondered if that was his nature, or if he was afraid of incurring the apelike wrath of the apes.

“Yes?” Cornelius said. The human hesitated, biting his lip.

“The jailer informed me you recently became engaged,” he said finally. “Congratulations.”

Cornelius didn’t respond. He nodded uneasily and focused on clipping the human’s hair.

“What’s her name?” the human asked.

“It’s … it’s really none of your business,” Cornelius said. In truth, he couldn’t remember. It was something like Xenia or Zepha or something. But he could never think straight around this human. “Lean forward a bit.”

The human obliged and Cornelius set to work trimming the back of his head. There was a fading red mark around the human’s neck, like someone had been choking him. Cornelius’s stomach flipped at the sight of it.

“Human—” he started.

“David,” the human corrected. Cornelius’s face felt hot under his fur. He knew the human’s name, of course.

“David,” he said. “What was your life like, before you came here? Did you live with other humans?”

“Yes,” said David. His eyes were sad and far away. “There were continents full of them.”

The idea of it made Cornelius’s head spin. “Continents full of humans,” he said under his breath. “It sounds like a fantasy novel. Who was their ruler?”

A smile tugged at David’s lips. “Some said I was, in a sense,” he said. “I was a singer. A popular one. And entertainers were frequently referred to as kings. But every continent was broken into countries, and each country had its own ruler.”

Cornelius was silent for a bit. The archaeologist in him had a million more questions to ask, but his mind was stuck on the first thing David had said. “You were a singer?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“A man of status?”

There was a pause. David held still so Cornelius could trim his bangs.

“One could say that,” he said eventually.

“And now,” Cornelius said, talking mostly to himself, “you live in a cage, eating — what? One meal a day?”

“Yes,” said David softly.

“Doesn’t that bother you? You always seem so serene here. I would be going _ape_.”

(Because he’s an ape).

David chuckled. “Five years is a long time,” he said. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

Cornelius’s knuckles brushed the bruise on David’s cheek and David went still, struggling not to flinch. His eyes went dark.

“Most of it,” he muttered. Cornelius’s heart ached. Once upon a time, he could have ignored a human’s suffering, could have believed Dr. Zaius’s rhetoric — that humans are inferior, that they don’t have emotions, that they can’t feel pain. But over the years, he had seen David use reasoning, create tools, even read and write. David was hairless, but he was as much an ape as Cornelius was.

“Look,” said Cornelius, tucking his scissors into his belt. “Don’t tell anyone, but it really cheeses me off, the way they treat you. Call me a radical, but I don’t think it’s right for a monkey to rape a human.”

David stared down at the floor, unable to look Cornelius in the eye. Cornelius gently raised David’s chin until they were gazing at each other.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” said Cornelius firmly. “No more torture. No more rape. Okay?”

David’s eyes shone with tears. “You’re not the first person to tell me that,” he said, voice raw. “There’s always someone — always one ape in town who comes in here and whispers that he’ll save me. But in the end they just take what they want and leave.”

“You don’t believe me,” Cornelius said, pulling away. “That’s fine. I wouldn’t either, in your situation. But I’m coming back here tonight, okay? Whether you believe me or not.”

David turned away until Cornelius couldn’t see his face. He didn’t respond, but his chest rose and fell rapidly, making Cornelius’s heart ache once again.

There was nothing he could say to convince David he was telling the truth. Cornelius stepped out of the cell; his mind was already formulating his plan for tonight. The provisions he would need, the steps he would have to take to ensure they weren’t caught. He thought of his fiancee, whatever her name was, and was suddenly very glad they didn’t live together.

His cell phone buzzed and he took it out (it was an iStone 4, which shows that Cornelius buys quality products but that he doesn’t always keep up with the upgrades, because he doesn’t like to spend unnecessary money), looking at the caller ID. Zira. Oh right, that was her name. Cornelius ignored the text. If he wanted to pull this off, he couldn’t get bogged down by emotional connections.

He had a job to do.


End file.
